Samuel L. Jackson Joins Cast of RoboCop Remake

star Samuel L. Jackson has reportedly signed on to play a role in MGM’s upcoming reboot of the 1987 sci-fi action flick RoboCop.

For those who have never seen the original film, RoboCop tells the story of a Detroit cop named Alex Murphy who is brutally murdered and subsequently revived and turned into a super-human cyborg police officer.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jackson is onboard to play Pat Novak, an influential media mogul, and will join a cast that includes Gary Oldman and Joel Kinnaman, who takes on the role of RoboCop.

The Reporter adds that Brazilian filmaker Jose Padilha (The Elite Squad) is set to direct the movie, which is scheduled to hit theaters in August 2013.

Padilha explained his vision for the RoboCop reboot in 2011:

“I have my take on it,” he says. “And I can tell you this: In the first RoboCop when Alex Murphy is shot, gunned down, you see some hospitals and stuff and then you cut to him as RoboCop. My movie is between those two cuts. How do you make RoboCop? How do you slowly bring a guy to be a robot? How do you actually take humanity out of someone and how do you program a brain, so to speak, and how does that affect an individual?”

In addition to RoboCop, Samuel L. Jackson is also currently filming Quentin Tarantino’s revenge drama Django Unchained which will hit screens around the country later this year.

Watch the trailer for the original RoboCop movie below:

Readers chime in: Are you looking forward to seeing Samuel L. Jackson in the reboot of RoboCop or was the original film a classic that should remain untouched?